OAKLAND, CALIF. - A revolt is brewing among college presidents against the influential college rankings put out each year by U.S. News & World Report.

Dozens of schools have recently refused to fill out surveys used to calculate ranks, and efforts are now afoot for a collective boycott.

Colleges have complained in the past about the rankings. But recent events have rallied opposition, including the tying of presidential pay to ranking at Arizona State University and accusations by the president of Sarah Lawrence College that the magazine threatened to use hocus-pocus data to stand in for average SAT scores at the school.

At the heart of the matter: A college degree is increasingly expensive, and students and parents want to make informed decisions. But educators worry that the rankings have made college a commodity, creating a false impression that schools can be easily compared and stressing out students who want only the "best" schools.

"This increasing interest in measuring everything – these so-called science-based measures of [educational] outcomes and the like – seems to me to be so misguided that it's now captured the imagination of the leadership in higher education," says Christopher Nelson, president of St. John's College in Annapolis, Md., who heads an association of 124 prestigious liberal arts schools. "This is a bad way of talking about an education. [Students] aren't consumers shopping for a product."

The boycott of the U.S. News rankings could be extended in coming weeks as a draft letter makes the rounds of academia. The letter, formulated by a dozen college presidents and an education activist, calls for others to join them in neither filling out the magazine's survey form nor touting rankings in marketing materials.

The "reputational survey," as it's called, asks college administrators to rank the quality of hundreds of schools on a one to five scale. The data – which critics call a "beauty contest" – account for 25 percent of the overall U.S. News rankings.

Several college presidents suggested that they personally could evaluate only five to 10 schools – a far cry from the hundreds on the list. "We know each other through reputation, but that's different than having the kind of intimate knowledge you should have when you are making a ranking," says Robert Weisbuch, president of Drew University in Madison, N.J., who plans to sign the letter.

The boycott of the U.S. News rankings could be extended in coming weeks as a draft letter makes the rounds of academia. The letter, formulated by a dozen college presidents and an education activist, calls for others to join them in neither filling out the magazine's survey form nor touting rankings in marketing materials.

So then why are the millons of dollars spent on all the marketing materials in the first place, huh?

Only other people who do that are businesses that are selling...PRODUCTS.

I support the boycott on the grounds that it's completely flawed and encourages otherwise intelligent students to wet their pants while deciding between a school ranked #85 and #95, or #20 and #26, or tier 3 and tier 4 when in reality there's NO F**KING DIFFERENCE!

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barenakedtjm

I support the boycott on the grounds that it's completely flawed and encourages otherwise intelligent students to wet their pants while deciding between a school ranked #85 and #95, or #20 and #26, or tier 3 and tier 4 when in reality there's NO F**KING DIFFERENCE!

I support the boycott on the grounds that it's completely flawed and encourages otherwise intelligent students to wet their pants while deciding between a school ranked #85 and #95, or #20 and #26, or tier 3 and tier 4 when in reality there's NO F**KING DIFFERENCE!

well there might not be a difference between #95 and 85, or 20 and 26 but there's a difference between 95 and 20 or 85 and 26.

Anyway, I didn't notice the article mention what schools were boycotting. In order for it to work, it'd need most of the top schools to do it. Otherwise, it won't have much effect other than pissing off the borad who will demand to know why their ranking dropped.

The boycott of the U.S. News rankings could be extended in coming weeks as a draft letter makes the rounds of academia. The letter, formulated by a dozen college presidents and an education activist, calls for others to join them in neither filling out the magazine's survey form nor touting rankings in marketing materials.

So then why are the millons of dollars spent on all the marketing materials in the first place, huh?

Only other people who do that are businesses that are selling...PRODUCTS.

Hypocracy!!!

I'm not sure what you're asking here JOURNEYMAN because your sentences don't seem to make much sense. The College Rankings game is a catch-22. If one school boycotts and the others don't that one school gets screwed and gains nothing. Boycotting the surveys will only work if all (or many) schools do it. Students rely too heavily on the rankings and should make their own rankings based on their own research of the schools.

I support the boycott on the grounds that it's completely flawed and encourages otherwise intelligent students to wet their pants while deciding between a school ranked #85 and #95, or #20 and #26, or tier 3 and tier 4 when in reality there's NO F**KING DIFFERENCE!

well there might not be a difference between #95 and 85, or 20 and 26 but there's a difference between 95 and 20 or 85 and 26.

Anyway, I didn't notice the article mention what schools were boycotting. In order for it to work, it'd need most of the top schools to do it. Otherwise, it won't have much effect other than pissing off the borad who will demand to know why their ranking dropped.

Honestly? I think the differences between #20 and #95 are smaller than you'd think when it comes to undergrad.

There are a lot of colleges out there; as of 2003 about 2,500 four year schools existed in the U.S. (As opposed to the less than 200 accredited law schools).

Where you went to college is not nearly as important as the fact that you go at all; I hope their boycott works.

I support the boycott on the grounds that it's completely flawed and encourages otherwise intelligent students to wet their pants while deciding between a school ranked #85 and #95, or #20 and #26, or tier 3 and tier 4 when in reality there's NO F**KING DIFFERENCE!

There's some element of truth to it. I am not sure I concur with the last line though.

I support the boycott on the grounds that it's completely flawed and encourages otherwise intelligent students to wet their pants while deciding between a school ranked #85 and #95, or #20 and #26, or tier 3 and tier 4 when in reality there's NO F**KING DIFFERENCE!

well there might not be a difference between #95 and 85, or 20 and 26 but there's a difference between 95 and 20 or 85 and 26.

Anyway, I didn't notice the article mention what schools were boycotting. In order for it to work, it'd need most of the top schools to do it. Otherwise, it won't have much effect other than pissing off the borad who will demand to know why their ranking dropped.

Yes, there is a difference between 95 and 20, but do you really need US News Rankings to figure that out?

Most of the top schools would definitely have to boycott for it to work. I don't see that happening with how rankings-crazy law schools are today. There's too much competition in Tiers 1 and 2 between the schools.